Proverbs

Calm Passage

God promises a safe landing, but not a calm passage. - Bulgarian Proverb

ggNSgg

Three steps to the coffee table. Seven steps to the entertainment unit. Fifteen steps to the kitchen. Four steps to the fridge. Nineteen steps back to the couch and then two to the coffee table.

Nick repeated the circuit four times before acknowledging that he didn't want anything to eat or drink. He didn't need an ice pack for his head or for the hand with which he'd punched the wall. He probably could use a few aspirin, but he couldn't recall where he'd left the bottle.

What he really needed was at the corner of the coffee table.

Car keys and wallet, all the modern man needed in order to escape. Or flee, depending on the purpose of leaving. Of course, his cell phone was sitting right there too. He'd decided to ignore it after the first two times he caught himself dialing a familiar number.

He could handle this without going to Grissom. He wouldn't be turned away if he did, he knew that. There was still something in his mind that told him Gil didn't deserve this messed up shell.

Walter Gordon had taken much more than his impulsive resolve to fix his prior relationship. He'd taken his sense of safety. He'd destroyed his faith in himself.

Nick stopped at the front door of his home. His car keys were pressing deep furrows into his hands, his wallet a heavy presence in his back pocket. He hesitated, knowing he should turn around.

There were sleeping pills, properly prescribed, to help him get through this. His mind didn't want to even think the words panic attack. He could experience the drugged sleeping bliss of letting it all pass him by. He could wake up and pretend once more that he still dwelt in a world that was safe.

But none of it was safe anymore, not for little girls and not for grown men. Nick, finding himself increasingly unable to pretend, wasn't sure what he could do.

He could speak to Grissom. Gil would know what to do. He'd encourage. He'd berate. In the end, Nick would be ready to face the world again with the brave happy face everyone expected.

He was fine. He was just fine.

Nick pulled his truck to the side of the road when he realized he was four blocks from Gil's residence. He couldn't remember if he'd locked his front door, or even closed it behind him. He wasn't even sure he cared.

All he did know was that he wanted, for any possible length of time, to feel safe.

ggNSgg

Gil Grissom was pulled from a fairly heavy sleep by the increasingly strident knocking on his door. Taking the time to pull a grey and faded LVPD shirt over his bare chest was the most he could manage. Whoever decided their visit couldn't wait would simply have to deal with his bowlegged appendages sticking out of his dragonfly-covered boxers.

Not looking through the peephole was an idiotic violation of personal security. However, as he'd only been asleep for about three hours and wasn't in the mood to be polite, Gil forewent the standard precaution.

"What?" he growled at the male figure standing in his doorway, blinking the blur of strong light from his vision.

The figure pushed inside, setting him off balance. Grissom turned, ready to go for his weapon, his phone, something. But before he could reach anything, the man had a heavy grip on his upper arms.

Door shut, the room was dim with the atmosphere of a day sleeper. Gil tried to focus, tried to fully wake, to understand the desperation on Nick Stokes' face.

"Nicky?"

"Say yes," Nick pleaded in a low, hoarse tone.

Without a second thought, Gil gave the exact response he knew would comfort his former lover the most.

"Yes."

Nick didn't say anything else. He didn't want for more precise agreement. He didn't pause to allow the Grissom-style interrogation that would surely occur.

He merely leaned in and kissed the older man.

Gil blinked, not entirely sure he wasn't dreaming. Nick's face was slightly blurry, peaceful and reposed with eyes closed as they kissed. His hands tightened farther on Gil's arms, before sliding up to shoulders and then to comb through the short hairs at the base of his neck.

Nick kissed differently. It was a difficult thought to let go, as Gil returned the emotional intensity of their embrace. He raised his own arms to clasp the man close. Sliding them around the Texan's waist brought them into full contact.

The kiss' migration from lips to full body served to block out Gil's jealousy. Someone else had changed the way his Nicky kissed. Unknown numbers of partners had molded his technique into a different shape than the one with which Gil was familiar.

As if sensing the distraction of his partner, Nick whined deep in his throat. Almost in apology, Gil licked at the parted lips before him. Dipping inside, he was consoled with the familiar taste.

He pulled back, brow furrowing as Nick panted in his arms. "Nicky?"

Nick opened his eyes, pupils blown with exhaustion and arousal. He frowned at the rapidly thickening thought processes visible on Grissom's face. Not letting the older man move away, he tightened his grip and began to lead them in a shuffling step.

"You said yes," Nick reminded in a needy whisper.

"Nicky."

Unable to move past the simple nickname, Gil wasn't quiet sure how to react. It was like being handed what you wanted with what you needed, all wrapped up in something you weren't sure you could handle.

"I need you, Gil."

The quiet phrase nearly undid him as Nick finished guiding them in the short trip to the bedroom. The younger man's hands had slid down his back, to rest on his sides, fingertips slipping under the edge of his boxers. They were cold against sleepwarmed skin, even with the heat of a Las Vegas day having warmed them.

Nick was clammy. He ached with the need he felt and the fear he'd be turned away. Then, in an instant, he saw the capitulation. The echo of his own need, accompanied by the loss and grief of long denial, played across Gil's face to vanish beneath desire.

Gil didn't bother to speak; he simply slid his hand around to the front of Nick's pants and popped the snap on his jeans. Nick could feel his cock throbbing underneath the denim, crying with its own plea.

There was a ghost memory in Nick's head. He knew, or thought he knew, how Gil tasted. The noises he made when he was aroused. The sigh he made as he came.

None of it compared to reality.

Nick could feel himself calming by stages as he lowered his head to Gil's jaw. The skin was hidden with the shortly cropped beard. Beneath that shield was a familiar yet strange and new flavor.

He sighed as he relearned the sensations of his lover. Automatically complying as Gil undressed him, Nick only released him to cross to the bed. He turned, thoughtlessly displaying himself as he crawled towards the pillows.

Gil's unconscious moan had Nick freezing in place. Ass in the air, skin tingling, he dropped his forehead to the sheets. That simple sound of admiration, the scent of Gil that clung to the fabric beneath him, tested his self control. There was a fleeting desire to come from just those bare stimulations.

The panic still clinging to his edges kept it from being enough.

Nick turned, first meeting Gil's gaze as he lay on his side. Then, beckoning with a single outstretched hand, he slid to his back.

"Gil?"

But the older man was hesitating, uncertain, with his hands caught on the waist of his boxers. Nick didn't remember ridding his lover of his shirt. He didn't recall sucking the strident red marks along the man's collarbone into existence.

He did know that if Gil continued to not respond, he would wash away as surely as a shattered branch before a flash flood.

"Please?" Nick asked, quietly relaxing into the bed.

It broke the fugue that had momentarily held Grissom in its grasp. He shucked his boxers without another thought. The plain black fabric with its dancing, fluttering, vibrantly painted wings hovered in a forgotten heap on the floor.

Nick was stalked. A hot stare held him frozen in its path as Gil approached him. The last steps to the bed were an eternity; the shift of the mattress beneath the weight of another body a torture.

The touch of skin against skin had both men sighing as if the world had finally righted itself. Perhaps it had, the familiarity of long ago combining with the sensation of new to deepen their need.

Part of Nick had expected his lover to simply dive for his cock. For the man to prepare him, flip him over, and fuck him through the mattress. Nick wouldn't have known how to admit it, but part of him had wanted that type of rough, grounding coupling.

What he received was bittersweet.

Gil traced the Achilles tendon with tongue and teeth until Nick was writhing on the bed. He relearned the shape of Nick's knees, fucking the fold of skin with his tongue. The hair that scattered across strong thighs was petted and parted. Bypassing the groin entirely, Gil mimicked the act of lovemaking with his tongue in Nick's navel.

He teased, tormented, and reminded himself of the joy between them until Nick was a sweaty, breathless mess. Pulling back, their eyes locked. Nick was desperate. They were both exhausted. This had passed beyond desire into something as essential as air.

A sudden fumbling, unsure dig through the bedside table had Nick quirking his mouth into a faint grin. His memories had been right. Sex with Gil was intense, mind-blowing yet also silly and fun.

Nick spread his legs, Gil sinking against his body. As his cock throbbed against the older man's abdomen, Gil's slipped to prod just beneath his balls. Grunting, Nick resisted the urge to push against him. It had been a long, long time.

The first touch of slick fingers against his entrance was startling. Nick tensed, relaxing as Gil made to draw away.

"Do it already… please," he begged, teeth clenched around the pleas and promises he wanted to make just to have this again.

Gil stared at him with something akin to awe as the first finger slipped easily into his passage. Nick bit his lip, the second stretching him too quickly.

"You're the only," Nick groaned as Gil twisted just right. "Only one who's," a gasping pause, "Ever done this to me."

"Nicky…" Gil breathed out, seizing Nick's lips as he continued to stretch his partner. It was a leisurely exploration, languid with the assurance that this was happening. No longer was their contact a vestige of memory or dream. Now it was writ in the fabric of reality.

Nick squirmed, impatient with the prologue to why he'd come here. "Now."

"Nicky?"

"Now." Dark eyes flashed the demand.

Gil pulled away for a moment, fumbling in the drawer once again. There was experience, then there was presumption. Nick scowled at the layer of latex being smoothed down to come between them. For all that this was familiar territory, they weren't who they had once been.

The first coming together almost made that impossible to believe. Nick stretched around the invading prick like a familiar glove. He cried out, clinging to Gil's shoulders as the man eased inside with comfortable certainty.

They arched, thrusting together in a quickly familiar rhythm. It was all the frustrated desire and delayed acknowledgement combined. Nick panted, suddenly squeezing with an instinctive knowledge. As he'd suspected, it caused Gil to stutter in his thrusts.

Then, with a wicked grin and sucking kiss against Nick's neck, the older man began to fuck him in earnest. Nick's legs were bent towards his chest, knees hooked over his lover's arms. The various aches of an unused position were ignored beneath the need to keep going, to reach that pinnacle just beyond them.

Shifting against the man beneath him, Gil was suddenly rubbing Nick's cock against his stomach with each thrust. Nick yowled like a scalded cat, exploding with a series of jerky starts. As blood warm semen slid between them, Gil grunted into the contractions around his prick. He thrust jerkily, finishing quickly as Nick panted.

Neither of them was in a hurry to part, but Nick's body made its limits known as the first endorphins began to fade. Gil helped him to straighten, pulling out of his body to dispose of the condom.

"Gil," Nick started, not letting the man move farther than to drop the latex atop the nightstand.

Grissom eased back, suddenly unwilling and unable to hear what had brought the younger man to his bed. "Shhh, Nicky," he soothed, pulling his lover against his chest as he lay back on the bed.

Nick squirmed for a moment before easing back into the embrace. He sighed deeply. Gil took a deep breath. For the first time in far too long, Nick was here. Between one thought and the next, he slipped back to sleep.

ggNSgg

The shrill imperiousness of the alarm woke Grissom from his first truly contented sleep in years. He shifted, rolling slightly to trigger the snooze button. It might have seemed odd, but he was human despite the rumors to the contrary.

Rather than the disturbing noise, it was the vacant bed that truly woke him. He came to full awareness in an instant.

He was alone.

Frowning, Gil swung back the covers and stood. He was nude and sore. Not immediately recalling if his prior shift was physical enough to cause this, he began to seek corroborating evidence.

Nick had been here. Hadn't he?

There were no clothes on the floor. A quick check of the closet showed his lounging clothes from before bed tossed carelessly on top. There were no sexual implements lying about, nightstand drawer closed and as ill-arranged as always. A rapid check showed no used prophylactics in his trash cans, but they could be flushed down the toilet.

"It wasn't a dream," Gil asserted to himself.

He paced through his empty home, unwilling to admit that perhaps it had been a dream. Or, even worse, Nick had been there and left as abruptly as it seemed.

The scientist's thought process that typically dominated his mind sent him to his living room. He wasn't accustomed to crouching over his evidence kit in the nude, but would forgive himself the oddity. He'd been in the field more years than some of the newer employees had been adults.

The portable ALS from his kit had him shaking his head as he carried it back into the bedroom. Dusk made turning off the few lights he'd flipped on all the more effective. Of course, it would be inconclusive to check his sheets. He was, after all, a healthy male. Even the best detergent and launderings left trace evidence.

As he stood in the dark room, clad only in the goggles that would show him the fluorescence under the ALS, he caught sight of himself in the dresser mirror. His chest, the skin beneath crinkled, sleep matted hair, was fluorescing.

In clear, if smudged from repetition, letters was a simple four-lettered word.

Safe.

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